Police, arts budget cuts suggested

Tuesday

Feb 24, 2009 at 12:01 AM

STOCKTON - The City Council's budget and finance committee recommended Monday that the Police Department reduce its part-time budget by more than half and that Stockton lay off its public arts manager, continuing what is becoming a weekly litany of cost-cutting announcements at City Hall.

David Siders

STOCKTON - The City Council's budget and finance committee recommended Monday that the Police Department reduce its part-time budget by more than half and that Stockton lay off its public arts manager, continuing what is becoming a weekly litany of cost-cutting announcements at City Hall.

The elimination of 21,014 annual hours of part-time work - the equivalent of about 10 full-time employees - in camera monitoring, records and other police operations will tax full-time staff and delay response times, Assistant Police Chief Blair Ulring said.

He proposed the reduction, anticipating annual savings of $354,000.

"We don't have any choice," Ulring said. "It has to be done."

Already this month City Manager Gordon Palmer laid off three department heads and issued layoff notices to 29 police officers.

More layoffs are likely as the city tries to close a general fund deficit expected to reach $30million by June 2010.

Ulring, who told the committee earlier this month that he could not recommend $9million in cuts to his department's $89million budget - the reduction Palmer has contemplated requiring of police in fiscal 2009-10 - said Monday that he will recommend reductions of that order next month.

"The direction I've been given now is that we will meet that $9million budget," Ulring said.

Palmer and the Stockton Police Officers Association are to meet this morning in a late-hour bid to negotiate a salary reduction measure to prevent the layoffs of the 29 officers issued notices this month. Those officers otherwise are to be laid off at week's end.

The budget and finance committee voted unanimously to forward Ulring's part-time reduction plan to the full council for approval.

That followed the committee's recommendation Thursday to cancel city fireworks on the Fourth of July and to close Stockton Memorial Civic Auditorium and the municipal camp at Silver Lake.

The full council is likely to approve the cost cutting in March.

The committee Monday also recommended laying off Public Arts Manager Robyn Burror, officials intending to fold her position into another. Her layoff was expected to save $62,060.

Members of the arts community lobbied the committee to keep Burror. Artist Scott Runion said it would be a financial mistake to remove someone so experienced at managing public arts contracts. Burror could not be reached late Monday for comment.

The committee rejected at least temporarily a proposal to eliminate the Police Department's $150,000 annual subsidy of the nonprofit Community Partnership for Families, whose family resource centers provide education, counseling, food assistance and other services.

The subsidy's loss would likely force the closure of at least one of four centers in Stockton, partnership Executive Director Robina Asghar said.

She said the centers reduce crime and otherwise benefit the neighborhoods they serve.

"If we have to close a center, crime will go back up," she said. "Children won't have a place to go."

The city increased its funding of the centers after then-Mayor Ed Chavez, a former police chief, proposed as much in his State of the City address in 2007, saying the centers helped reduce crime.

Councilman Dale Fritchen, chairman of the budget and finance committee, said withdrawing support could wait until the end of June - the end of the fiscal year through which the subsidy has been paid - allowing officials to determine if the subsidy could be paid in future years from some healthier, non-general fund account.

Contact reporter David Siders at (209) 943-8580 or dsiders@recordnet.com.